“All eyes are currently on Congress,” and Kyiv hopes that lawmakers “will find the necessary solution.”
There are no funds left in the American budget for human, financial, and energy support for Ukraine. Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova announced this on Sunday, December 17, Voice of America wrote.
In a conversation with the diplomat, the journalists of the publication pointed out that there are two sources of money for weapons and aid, which were created specifically to help Ukraine. The US PDA’s Presidential Drawdown Authority program provides weapons that are already in stock. Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funds long-term arms contracts.
Markarova explained that all the money was spent on USAI. Through the PDA program, the Pentagon discovered it had inflated the value of weapons left in Ukraine by $6.2 billion. This created a slowly shrinking reserve of $4.6 billion. Currently, only $1 billion is left to buy new weapons to replace the old ones. The diplomat stressed that Kyiv continues to need help.
“The US buys weapons from American manufacturers here in the US, like drones, missiles and air defense interceptors and I could go on and on, and you can’t get that from the PDA program. You have to go to the industry to have them doing it. Yes there is this program of presidential powers, and we are trying, together with the military, to find everything that is still available,” the diplomat said.
According to him, “now all eyes are on Congress,” and Kyiv hopes that lawmakers “will find the necessary solution.”
Earlier, Markarova said that the bill on the aid package to Ukraine will soon be returned to the US Senate, as the senators did not support the cessation of debate on the document.
We remind you that on December 6, the aid bill to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan did not receive enough votes to move forward. The day before, during the discussion of this bill in the Senate, a scandal occurred between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have vowed to block funding unless Democrats agree to meet their condition of adding tougher measures to curb migration at the US border with Mexico. Also, President Vladimir Zelensky, who was supposed to explain to senators why this bill is important, canceled at the last minute.
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.